Encouraging Joy & Grace

I have the honour of being a year adviser at my Christian school in Sydney Australia. This is a job that allows me to look after 30 18 year old girls as they approach the end of their schooling. I have been the year adviser for these girls for the past three and a half years, and have had the pleasure of walking with them as they have grown and matured. It has been strange watching their growth and watching them rebel against different aspects of their schooling experience as they have matured.Over the years I have heard of fights within groups, and between groups, of young love, and young heartbreak, of anger and frustration with teachers and assessment tasks, and as they have grown older, dissatisfaction with the whole concept of schooling.These girls have begun to push all of the boundaries they have been given, wearing their uniform incorrectly, complaining about work load, coming late to school, not completing homework and then getting snippy with staff when they get them in trouble for any of these things. These girls, they are groaning for the next stage of their life, groaning for the part where they aren’t treated like children any more. One of my roles in this job is to discipline these girls, and this part gets harder and harder as they get older and it becomes increasingly clear to me that they are almost adults, and it really doesn’t matter if they wear a necklace or not. I see their future too, as fulfilled adults working in jobs they love and wearing whatever nail polish they choose, it just feels right for them. It feels like they aren’t made for this world at school anymore.That said, I don’t think this attitude is good – while they are in school they should respect their teachers, and respect the school rules, no matter how silly they may seem. That being disrespectful is still sin, and sin is still sin.As I thought about this, I realized that I too often focus on the bad things in creation groaning with the hurts and sadnessesand stresses of this creation, frustrated that it isn’t perfect, that it isn’t right, and in turn, choosing a sinful response rather than a hope filled, Heaven focused one. I’ve been telling the girls that they need to focus on the good things of school, but be looking forward to next year, working in the situation they are in but with their eyes on the new stage beginning soon. As I’ve been telling them this, I have been realizing that I too need to be applying this to my whole life.We don’t live in a perfect world. We don’t live in the new heaven and new Earth promised us. It is so easy to focus on what is wrong here, without casting our eyes to the hope that is before us, to the next stage - the one we were made for! Suffering will come, difficult times will continue to affect us. We will still groan under our sin, groan under the pain of this current Earth, but let’s be encouraged to obey these Earthly rules as we were commanded, but to not let our hope of a new creation fade. Because one day, there will be no more tears, there will be no more suffering, for God is making all things new.21 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a]for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away,and there was no longer any sea.2 I saw the Holy City,the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,prepared as a bridebeautifully dressed for her husband.3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes.There will be no more death’[b]or mourning or crying or pain,for the old order of things has passed away.”5 He who was seated on the thronesaid, “I am making everything new!”Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”- Revelations 21: 1 – 5 (NIV)